Thursday, 4 September 2008

My long, continuous sketchbook records my journey from Cannington to Lisbon to Porto using papers acquired during the trip. Tickets, boarding passes, camomile tea bags, paper napkins and the sick bag from the aeroplane were all useful materials to combine to make my pages with a limited kit of needle and thread, water soluble pencils, a pencil and a black pen. I venture from home to Bristol airport via a carpark in a mushroom farm and then on to Lisbon.

A train journey through the dismal suburbs of Lisbon, past Benfica football ground.

An oasis in Sintra, pure silk.

Wrought iron balconies, stone urns, hanging fushias.

Hydrangea, wiseria, sugar packets.

Decorative tiles in summer palaces in leafy, hilly Sintra.

Following the river through old towns: picked eucalypus leaves.

The hills that bordered the river Douro are covered with stripes of vines that produce a lovely port wine that enabled the journey to continue at home!